A brilliant surgeon offered dying patients an experimental, untested treatment. Was his controversial approach life-saving innovation or an unethical overreach?
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A Sociology of the Smartphone
Smartphones have altered the texture of everyday life, digesting many longstanding spaces and rituals, and transforming others beyond recognition.
The Battery Breakthrough That Could Juice U.S. Manufacturing
In a new report, McKinsey describes a broad new age of manufacturing that it calls Industry 4.0. The consulting firm says the changes under way are affecting most businesses. They are probably not “another industrial revolution,” it says, but together, there is “strong potential to change the way factories work.” For decades, the US has watched […]
In 1971, the People Didn’t Just March on Washington — They Shut It Down
The most influential large-scale political action of the ’60s was actually in 1971, and you’ve never heard of it. It was called the Mayday action, and it provides invaluable lessons for today.
Technology for Problem Sleepers
Having trouble sleeping? In The New Yorker, Patricia Marx writes about the economy of slumber, offering a lively survey of current gadgets and expensive equipment designed to get you a night of rest, and she nestles it snug as a bug with a primer on the growing science of sleep. From deprivation to natural cycles to oversleep, […]
Hidebound: The Grisly Invention of Parchment
While most of the Old World was writing on papyrus, bamboo, and silk, Europe carved its own gruesome path through the history books.
Mass Extinction: The Early Years
A quick rundown of the ecocidal empires that came before us.
Mass Extinction: The Early Years
A quick rundown of the ecocidal empires that came before us.
When the Messiah Came to America, She Was a Woman
On the rise and fall of American utopia.
How Shake Shack is Avoiding Chipotle’s Mistakes
Rob Brunner, writing about the rise of the popular Shake Shack burger chain in Fast Company.
